Inventor of the world wide web Tim Berners-Lee has accused Facebook of creating a ‘closed silo of content’. Photograph: Chris Ratcliffe/GettyFacebook, LinkedIn and other social networking sites represent “one of several threats” to the future of the world wide web, its founder, Sir Tim Berners-Lee has warned.

Some of the web’s “most successful inhabitants”, such as Facebook and large telecoms companies, have begun to “chip away” at its founding principles, Berners-Lee wrote in a Scientific American journal essay published today

Social networking sites that do not allow users to extract the information they put into them is a “problem” that could mean the web is “broken into fragmented islands”, he said.

Google accused Facebook earlier this month of leaving its 600 million users in a “data dead end” with their contact details and personal information “effectively trapped”.

Although Facebook recently began allowing users to download profile information including status updates and photos, the world’s most popular social network has been roundly criticised for leaving users’ network of contacts “walled” inside its own site. Continue reading →